


do you ever get that feeling that you can’t shift (the type that sticks around like something in your teeth)

by santiagoslisbon



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagoslisbon/pseuds/santiagoslisbon
Summary: summary: basically my thoughts on what would happen if gina and amy were the canon relationship instead of jake and amy
Relationships: Amy Santiago/Gina Linetti, Gina Linetti/Jake Peralta, Rosa Diaz/Amy Santiago
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	1. i. santiago drunkenness scale

**Author's Note:**

> hey!! it’s been a while! this is a little unconventional, but i’ve been thinking of gina and amy a lot lately, so i wrote a little something. i’m kinda proud of it and i hope you like it, but it’s fine if you don’t!! :)

i. santiago drunkenness scale

Gina liked studying Amy.

More than she liked studying most people.

One of the things that made her who she was, the fabulous Gina Linetti, was having an advantage over everyone else around her. In order to do that, she needed to be able to understand everyone on a deeper level than she did herself, so that when the time came, she could be the phoenix rising from the ashes, the thing everyone adored. 

That’s what she told herself, anyway.

Amy Santiago was different. She wasn’t easy to pin down, to categorize and define. It irked her to no end, but was also the very thing that made her so interesting. She somehow always managed to undermine her, elude her when she least expected it.

On the surface, she seemed like the typical nerdy control freak, the person who was obsessed with law and order, who executed everything to a T. Gina had largely stuck to that definition of Amy, having no reason to believe there were any more dimensions to her, any more angles to approach.

Drunk Amy, however, was a different story.

She found that when someone like Jake or Rosa was drunk, their drunken sides were essentially exaggerated versions of their own personalities. They didn’t tend to stray much from those binary definitions.

For example, Jake was an emotional drunk, much like he was while sober. She had pinned this down early in their high school years, from the very first time he took a sip of alcohol, and he hadn’t changed much. He was the type of drunk to get caught up in the action of a place, adapt to its mood. He could go from bawling his eyes out to cheerful and bubbly in an instant. It had shocked her at first, sure, but it wasn’t unexpected.

Rosa, on the other hand, was a mystery at first. She didn’t often get stone-cold drunk; she normally did two or three shots, just enough to get her tipsy, but not enough for her to cross over into complete intoxication. Gina had taken every one of the rare opportunities when she did an extra shot or two to study her. Pretty quickly, she was able to determine that Rosa was a happy drunk, someone whose cheerfulness was so unusual, so strange, that it lured people in, made her an object of fascination. Sure, it was a new facet of Rosa’s personality, one she welcomed, but it was a cliche. She knew that sounded harsh, but it was the truth, likely a symptom of sitting through too many movies as a kid, courtesy of spending all of her time with Jake. It was always the tough characters who were softies on the inside. 

Then, there was Amy.

She strayed from her binary definition so drastically it was shocking. She didn’t just become one different person; she became five, at least that she had counted so far. 

She couldn’t quite pin her down in the same way she could with the others. Just when she thought she finally understood one facet of her intoxicated personality, another would be introduced.

She had never seen anything quite like it before and wasn’t quite sure how to react.

One thing she did know for sure, though, was that she couldn’t waste time waiting for each of these facets to reveal themselves.

So, she started inviting the whole squad out to Shaw’s whenever she could. They almost always agreed to go, thinking that her invitations were an attempt to build a closer bond, which, in a way, she guessed they were, but that wasn’t her ultimate motive.

Her ultimate motive, her main mission, was to pin down Amy Santiago as fast and as efficiently as possible. She would study the hell out of her. She would make Drunk Amy her bitch. 

It wasn’t easy. Not at all. 

On work nights, Amy would only do two or three shots, not wanting to get too drunk before work the next day. 

Gina couldn’t push her to drink, either. That would cause her motive to be uncovered too early, which could turn everything into one big disaster. 

And if there was anything she hated most in the world, it was disaster.

She found that weekends worked best. That was when Amy would get loose, doing four or, sometimes, five shots and expose more facets of her drunken personality, more nuances and subtleties for Gina to catch. 

………

She’s sitting at the bar, scrolling through her phone and studying Amy from afar as usual. She had already made her rounds earlier and wasn’t expecting anyone to approach her. 

All of a sudden, though, she hears a beer bottle slam against the bar and a faint rustling of leather against the stool next to her that could only mean one thing: Rosa was here. 

When she turns to face the other woman, she sees a large smirk etched on her face.

“Who are you looking at, Linetti?” Rosa raises her eyebrows, smirking even more when she notices Gina’s cheeks starting to flush.

Gina turns to scope out some random guy, but is involuntarily drawn back to Amy. She’s laughing at something Holt had said, probably some emotionless dry humor observation, her shoulders shaking as she tries to contain herself, her eyes alight with pleasure. 

Her gaze lingers a little too long and before she can shift her gaze to one of the many guys present in the bar, Rosa laughs, the kind of uncertain laugh you do when you’re so shocked you don’t know how else to react.

“Oh my god. You have a crush on Amy, don’t you?” 

Gina blinks, attempting to collect her thoughts into something coherent. 

“I don’t get crushes, Rosa. I get mind blowing sex and then peace and quiet.”

Rosa grins, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Oh, really? Because every time you invite us here, you always end up sitting at the bar and not talking to anyone. I never knew what you were doing, but it’s obvious now. You were watching her and only her. Wouldn’t you call that a crush?”

Gina scoffs. “No way. I do not have a crush on Santiago.”

Rosa pauses, changing her tune. 

“If you don’t have a crush on her, then why have you been watching her?” Rosa sounds genuinely puzzled and Gina breathes a sigh of relief. 

At least now, she had another avenue to journey down, one that would distract Rosa from this crush nonsense.

“I call it the Santiago Drunkenness Scale,” Gina says with a dramatic flourish of her hand.

“The what?”

“Every time Amy takes another shot, she becomes a completely different person. And over time, I’ve built a system for it.”

She pauses, waiting for Rosa to say something, but she just nods her head, gesturing for Gina to continue.

“One Drink Amy is a little spacey. She zones out and forgets what she’s talking about. Two drinks: Loud Amy. Pretty self-explanatory. Three drinks: Amy Dance-Pants. She really pulls out the dorky dance moves there. It’s a little cute, but still thumbs down emoji.”

“I thought the dancing was just, like, her drunk thing.”

Gina shakes her head. “Nope. Anyways, Four Drink Amy is a little bit of a pervert-“

Rosa laughs. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that.”

“And Five Drink Amy is weirdly confident. Remember when she tried to have that arm-wrestling contest with Terry?”

“Oh, yeah. That was weird.”

“I’ve never seen Six Drink Amy, though. Maybe she could be my friend. Who knows?” Gina murmurs in wonder. 

Rosa nods, pursing her lips and scrunching her eyebrows in thought. “Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate, but-“

“But what?”

“You sure you don’t have a crush on her?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Like I said, I don’t get crushes.”

“If you say so.”

That was the first lie of many when it came to Amy Santiago.


	2. ii. beach house

“Ames,” Gina calls out, using Jake’s affectionate nickname for her.

“Giiina,” Amy slurs, turning her head to face her and smiling. “You got to see the Sasquatch. Was it everything you drumpt?”

In an instant, the corners of Gina’s mouth are suddenly upturned into a small smile. The weird thing about it is, she doesn’t feel like stopping. It confuses her, but she decides not to think about it. For now, anyways.

She kneels down, holding a glass of water in her hand, a small lime positioned on the edge of the glass.

“It was the stuff drumpts were made of.” Her voice takes on a soft tone, a tone she had never used before with anyone. It catches her off guard, but she quickly dismisses it as a side effect of being drunk. After all, she had done a few shots.

“Can you hold my eyes still until things stop spinning?” Amy asks, her voice feathery soft. Her hand reaches up, brushing against Gina’s thigh. 

Her heart is suddenly pounding fast, threatening to rip itself out of her chest at any moment, but she keeps her gaze trained on Amy, trying to keep herself in check. 

“Okay, let’s sit you up,” Gina decides, the soft tone gone. She pushes on Amy’s back with one hand, lifting her up to a sitting position. “There, easy does it—there you go.”

One hand still resting on Amy’s back, Gina sets the cold glass of water in her hands.

“Now drink this entire glass of water,” she instructs.

Amy grasps onto it instantly, gulping it down. 

As she sets the glass onto the floor, her gaze trained downwards for a moment, Amy suddenly looks up, studying her, their bodies only inches apart.

It could just be the fact that Gina’s drunk, and so is Amy, and she’s misreading something, but she starts to feel a familiar thrumming in her veins, a bubbling of warmth and affection springing in her chest. It was rare, this stirring within her. It only happened with certain people. To be specific, people she was in love with. It came on so suddenly, so powerfully, it scared her, shook her to her core. Gina Linetti did not get scared easily, either. It would be something she would think about for many nights afterwards, analyzing it over and over again, desperate not to reach the same conclusion she kept finding herself reaching. 

It made her heart pound a little faster, her thoughts race a little quicker, her senses become aware of everything: every feeling, every thought seemed to matter more than it did before.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been with women before; she had. Gender didn’t matter that much to her; whoever she felt attraction for, she tended to gravitate towards. 

This feeling, though—she wasn’t used to it.

Gina prided herself on being good—and if not good, great—at most things, but if there was one area of weakness, one she would never admit to but knew was true nonetheless, it was love. In the romantic sense. Sure, she fucked people, but she couldn’t say she was in love with a lot of them.

To her, love was like a stranger in the distance; she could feel it, she knew it was just around the corner if she bothered to look a little closer, but she couldn’t distinguish it from the tangle of other feelings pushing themselves onto the surface. She knew that if she put in the effort, tried harder, she could be good, hell, great, at it. The truth was, she was afraid to try.

She was afraid of what would happen if she put herself out there and got rejected. She was afraid of someone breaking through her bitchy veneer and not liking what they saw underneath. She had seen too much pop culture to believe in love, which was why she hardly ever tried it. 

She’s snapped out of her reverie when Amy says, a small smile on her face, her eyes dazed, “You’re taking care of me.”

Her response is automatic, an attempt to back herself out of this situation that was making her feel so many new, daunting things. 

“Just cause I know you won’t remember it.”

Amy picks up the glass, taking a small sip of the few droplets still gathered at the bottom, and makes a noise of disapproval, shaking her head. 

“Mmm mmm. Nope.” Amy points a wobbly finger at Gina, as convicted in her beliefs as Six Drink Amy could be. “You like me. Six Drink Amy is your friend.”

Gina bobs her head from side to side in a moment of indecision, refusing to give any indication of her true, jumbled feelings. 

Nonetheless, Amy’s mouth ignited in a large grin, lasting for only an instant as she burps, shifting slightly in place.

Gina’s immediately on guard, her fingertips raising, 

“And-and she’s gonna be very sick right now,” Amy murmurs, giving the empty glass back to Gina and shifting towards the direction of the bathroom.

“Mm-kay,” Gina responds, moving out of the way to clear a path for Amy.

As Amy stumbles towards the bathroom, Gina debates whether or not it would be a good idea to follow her.

She doesn’t have to debate for long, as the second she hears Amy vomiting into the toilet, an image of her hair getting soaked in vomit and toilet water pops into her head. It had happened to her before and she found that she didn’t want the same thing to happen to Amy. It was an odd feeling and only managed to pile more questions into her already scrambled brain.

Nonetheless, she stands up, rushing to the bathroom. She opens the door and slides down onto the wall next to Amy, who’s bent over the toilet, groaning. Her hands lay slack at her sides, head bent deep into the toilet. Gina leans over, collecting all of Amy’s hair into one hand while stroking her back with the other.

“Come on girl, you got this,” Gina whispers, the soft tone returning, but this time for a different reason. She had done this many times before for many different girls; she was practically a pro. 

After a few more retches, Amy braces her hands against the toilet and Gina lets go of her hair, opting instead to help her stand up. They walk over to the mirror together and Gina grabs a nearby towel, dabbing at the bile that had accumulated at the corners of Amy’s mouth. They make eye contact in the mirror and Amy smiles, a smile which Gina mirrors before reverting back to concerned mode. 

Setting the towel down and turning off the bathroom light, Gina walks Amy over to the couch. 

She decides that she’ll sit with Amy until she falls asleep, then head back up to her room and forget this night ever happened.

That plan goes to shit pretty fast, though. 

The second they collapse onto the couch, Amy’s head bobs to the side, landing in the center of Gina’s chest. Before Gina can move her, the rest of her body curls up, settling into the fetus position, a peaceful expression on her face.

It was the prettiest she had ever seen anyone sleep. Normally, there was snoring, sleep apnea, any number of things that made a sleeper ugly, but Amy Santiago did not have any of them. Just as she was in life, in sleep, she was perfect. 

Resolving to stay on the couch, all desire to leave suddenly vanquished, Gina grabs a nearby blanket and drapes it over Amy’s soft figure. 

It takes a while, but eventually, Gina’s pounding heart stills, her thoughts dissolve and she drifts off to sleep, possibly the best sleep she’s had in a long time.


	3. iii. holt’s dinner party

iii. holt’s dinner party

The lights went out.

And Amy swore she stopped breathing.

She was lucky; she could blame her racing heart, her sweaty palms, on the alcohol.

Key word: could. She wasn’t doing a very good job at convincing herself.

“We should go,” she says, noncommittal.

“Yup,” Gina responds, also noncommittal.

And they don’t move.

It wasn’t that she had never liked women before. She had—a substitute teacher in elementary school, her eighth grade debate partner, her college roommate. She had always dismissed them as figments of her imagination, little thrums of affection that would spark as fast as they faded.

In a family of seven brothers and being the only girl, she had to admit her parents played a role. She desperately wanted to please them. Even if she wasn’t on top of the mantle, she wanted to maintain her position in second place.

Revealing that she possibly liked women would jeopardize that.

So, she suppressed the hell out of it.

Sitting here with Gina felt different from all those other times before, in a way she couldn’t quite place. Ever since the Beach House, Gina had been looking at her in a different way. It wasn’t hatred or disgust or even indifference. She wanted to say it was almost..affection?

They were glimpses; a gaze lifting up from her phone for a moment, a second of eye contact in a crowded room. They were quick, momentary, so hard to catch that it was easy for Amy to convince herself she was seeing things. 

Now that she was sitting so close to her, now that their bodies were only inches apart, it was getting increasingly harder for Amy to squelch that feeling of uncharacteristic warmth towards Gina, to convince herself that she was in fact seeing things. She wanted to ask her what was up, why she kept looking at her like that, but was afraid of the answer. Plus, she didn’t want to ruin the mood, didn’t want to ruin their rare camaraderie.

So, they sit, taking swigs of wine and laughing. First Drink Amy spaces out in the middle of a conversation, in which they were debating who is better: Rihanna or Beyoncé. Her gaze drifts over to a bodega.

“What are you thinking about, Santiago?” Gina inquires, noticing the lapse in her attention, curiosity and a little something else gleaming in her eyes. 

Amy takes another swig of wine, morphing into Second Drink Amy and screaming for all the world to hear, “Let’s go shopping!”

“Now?” Gina raises her eyebrows.

“Yeah, why not?” 

She chuckles. “Whatever you say, Santiago.”

They make their way over to the bodega, stumbling, Amy taking another swig. Gina doesn’t stop her, a twinkle in her eye.

As the bells over the door jingle, announcing their entry, the faint sounds of Don’t Stop The Music thrum over the bodega’s speakers. Amy immediately busts out her dorky dance moves, bottle in hand, flapping arms and legs in all directions. She doesn’t care about the few people who are watching her, their eyebrows raised and their arms crossed.

Gina, pretending to be embarrassed while trying her hardest to stifle a laugh. yells, “I don’t know her! I don’t know who she is!”

The guy manning the bodega, a handsome Puerto Rican type, laughs. 

“You go girl!”

Amy, still holding the bottle, takes another swig. Four Drink Amy tries her best at what she deems a “sexy” strut, but stumbles multiple times, earning raucous laughter from Gina.

She sets the bottle down on the counter, which Gina immediately grabs, taking a sip from. 

Amy grabs a pair of sunglasses hanging from a stand. She puts them onto her face, admiring herself in the little mirror. Gina can barely contain her laughter, the sound a gasp in her throat.

She then fishes her wallet from the depths of her purse, holding out a large wad of cash that clearly shocks both the bodega guy and Gina. 

She slams the wad of cash onto the counter and slurs, “$200. For these sunglasses. And your shirt.”

The bodega guy raises his eyebrows, but for some reason, a reason that puzzles Amy to no end, he actually does it. 

He takes all of the cash and removes his hoodie, revealing only a white undershirt underneath. He then folds it and hands it to her. 

Amy and Gina leave, laughing, the sunglasses jostling up and down on Amy’s face, just a little too big. The Scarface hoodie rests in her hands, which she keeps holding up to her nose to sniff, earning disgusted looks from Gina that only causes her to laugh harder.

……………

The next day, Amy enters the precinct five minutes late, which she knows Gina takes note of, her gaze fixating on her like a hawk. Her hair is in a half-done ponytail, the effort she usually put into her appearance having diminished,

She makes a beeline for Gina’s desk, groaning.

“I am so hungover.”

Removing the sunglasses from her face, still unsure of how they ended up there in the first place, she asks, “Did we steal these sunglasses last night?”

Gina, wearing a pair of similar sunglasses, says, “No-“

Amy starts to sigh in relief before Gina continues.

“You paid the bodega guy $200 for them. And his shirt.”

She grimaces, an explanation suddenly popping into her head for that strange hoodie lying on her coach. She thought, for a second, that she might have hooked up with someone. If there was any one thought to jolt her awake fast, that was it.

“Oh god, that explains why I have a triple XL Scarface hoodie on my couch.” Amy sighs, her face descending into a smile. “Worth it. It was a pretty fun night.”

“Amazing.”

A look passes between them, soft smiles igniting both of their faces, when Captain Holt arrives.

Amy’s face suddenly goes slack, that desperate-to-please look coming into her eyes, the kind she always got around Captain Holt. All of her attention is honed in on him, Gina just a bit of fuzz on the side. For the moment, anyways.

Gina, on the other hand, frowns, actually looking a little offended, like he ruined a special moment between them.

“Hey, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for cancelling the party so abruptly. There was a non-emergency emergency.”

Gina and Amy exchange another glance and Gina smiles again.

“Your loss. Amy made a salad and a cake and they were”—she smacks her lips and spreads her fingers out for dramatic emphasis—“amazing.”

Amy blushes, smiling, trying to avert her gaze before Captain Holt catches her.

He doesn’t seem to notice, thankfully, as he says, “Well, let’s put a make-up dinner in the calendar.”

“Or we could just go with the flow. See what happens. I don’t give a...what?” Amy blurts, realizing too late that her response seems way too concerted.

And Gina seems to have come to that same conclusion, commenting only a moment later, “Too much.”

Amy panics, trying to clear her head, Captain Holt’s gaze falling onto her expectantly. 

“I mean, that would be great. Thank you, sir.”

She grimaces, keeping her head down as Captain Holt walks away and she makes a slow journey back to her desk.

Normally, embarrassing herself in front of Captain Holt and Gina wasn’t such a big deal; she had learned to get over it pretty fast.

But there was something different about this time. She found that she actually cared what Gina thought about her, how she looked at her. It was strange and weird and made everything she said or did seem way more important than it really was.

And another weird thing? She normally had an affirmative answer for everything. Yes, she liked that. No, she hated that. But this time, she had an answer that didn’t fit within those boundaries: she didn’t know. She had no idea what this was, if she was making too big a deal out of it, and it scared her.


	4. iv. if the whole world was watching, i’d still dance with you

That night, the whole squad was invited over to Jake’s apartment for Game Night.

Of course, Amy arrives fifteen minutes early, presenting a cheap bottle of wine and making light conversation with Jake. 

Captain Holt arrives five minutes early and his presence annihilates whatever lightness she had maintained before. All of a sudden, all sorts of odd compliments burst free from her normally uptight figure, earning her many puzzled looks from both Holt and Jake. It was the same awareness she had experienced at the Beach House, only tenfold. She still wasn’t quite comfortable being drunk around Captain Holt and the alcohol that had dulled her senses before wasn’t available now.

Terry and Charles arrive right on time, one after the other, which seems to make Charles pretty proud.

Hitchcock and Scully arrive next, carrying bulging grocery bags full of chips that ensure that Crinkle City will be an all-night attraction. They send the room into a flurry of chaos, each person trying to figure out who had invited them.

Rosa arrives soon after, the roar of her motorcycle’s engine announcing her presence before she does. She had brought the same cheap bottle of wine as Amy and Amy, her nerves fluttering, her heartbeat rising as she awaited the arrival of the one person who wasn't here yet, fixated on that coincidence. 

She attempts to make conversation with Rosa, but it doesn't last long, as she quickly resigns to relaxing on the couch, listening in on the conversations within the squad and adding in small comments. Amy admired that about her, the way that she could mask her feelings, keep her distance. It would be a useful skill to have right about now.

Gina arrives last, which was a surprise to absolutely no one. She always made it a point to be fashionably late, which, Gina had taken the time to explain when questioned, was a balancing act. It was the perfect alignment between fifteen minutes early, when everyone thinks you actually care about the job you work at and the people you’re with, and fifteen minutes late, when your lack of presence becomes noticeable, something that could cause trouble. 

The second Gina enters the apartment, her gaze flicks over to Amy’s, causing a surge of warmth to swell in her chest, warming her cheeks and making her pulse race faster than before.

Before she can say anything, Gina makes a beeline in her direction and suddenly, Amy finds herself crossing the small distance over to the couch, settling in next to Rosa and averting her gaze. God, why was she being like this? It wasn't impossible to have a normal conversation with Gina, was it?

Gina doesn't seem deterred, which relieves a small part of her. She flops down onto the couch next to Amy, her legs angling towards her, their thighs so dangerously close to touching it sends a shiver up her spine. 

Rosa raises her eyebrows, obviously noticing something going on between the two, but deciding not to comment on it.

“Whatever game we’re playing, you two are on my team,” Gina states, leaving no room for asking questions.

Something rises in her chest, a competitiveness that had only ever been brought out in her by Jake, back when she was still crushing on him. 

Before she can stop herself, Amy rebukes, “But you always cheat! You never play fair.”

She expects Gina to act surprised or, at least, offended, but instead, she scoffs. 

“I cheat for a reason.” Gina smirks, daring Amy to question her, to take the bait. She does, the curiosity within her too intense to ignore. 

“What, why? Cheating is never good. Honesty is the best policy,” Amy recites, the key mantra of her magnet school.

Rosa lets out a snort and Gina raises her eyebrows,

“The reason is because I don’t value you as people,” Gina responds. She glances at Amy, whose lips are pursed in a tight frown. 

Sighing, she explains herself. “I’m a god and you guys are like...mortals. Except for Hitchcock and Scully. They’re like…”

As much as Amy wants to be angry at Gina, she can’t resist chiming in.

“Satyrs!” 

Gina gives her a bemused look, which propels Amy into rambling. 

¨They´re basically, like, drunk horse g-¨

Before she can finish explaining, Jake announces, “Let the games begin!”

And so they do. 

They start off with Candy Land, which Gina, Amy, and Rosa’s team wins, no sweat.

From there, the games only get more intense.   
…………

Before they knew it, hours had passed.

Loud laughter erupted over top of low groans. Cups sloshed, spilling wine onto the floor, potato chip bags strewn across the room.

Jake and Amy were involved in a high-stakes Scrabble competition and the whole squad was riveted on it. 

Well, except for Gina. The most she offered was rolling her eyes or the occasional snide comment, nothing compared to her usual intense immersion in the squad's competition.

No one seemed to notice, their attention unaffected. That is, except for Holt, who occasionally glanced in her direction, a puzzled expression crossing his face.

And of course, anything Captain Holt noticed, Amy was quick to notice as well, so she caught these glimpses, these brief flickers, registering them. The thought crossed her mind a few dozen times to go over and talk to her, but she kept getting caught up in the action of the game.

A few minutes later, Amy ends up winning and she descends into a dork dance over top of Jake’s sighing. She’s so drunk she doesn’t even care that the Captain is here.

By then, it was nearly midnight and, although it was a weekend, a fact repeated many times by the squad in desperate tones, Holt proclaimed that it was time to go. 

Begrudgingly, Terry set to work cleaning up the board games and Charles and Jake took food and cup duty, which helped to lighten the mood. It was one of their favorite tasks, one they always tried to claim first, because over time, they had devised a game. They wanted to see who could shoot the most cups and the most food into the trash bags. Two separate games, two very different sets of rules. So far, for each of them, the score was 0-0; their drunkenness dulled their senses and caused their aim to be terrible. 

Despite this, it was normally a pretty fun way to end the night, but Amy found herself distracted, her eyes roving around the room. She spotted Gina in the corner, leaning against the wall and absorbed in her phone. Concerned, she walks over, glad that she had had five cups of wine; she desperately needed that confidence boost that Five Drink Amy provided her. 

Gina looks up for a moment, raises her eyebrows, then returns to scrolling through her phone.

¨Hey,¨ Amy starts, unsure.

¨Hey.¨

Amy sighs. “Are you okay?¨

¨What? Yeah. I´m fine. I´m totally chill.¨

A heavy silence falls over them, broken only by the squad’s laughter.

Suddenly, Gina leans in close, so close that her mouth brushes against Amy’s ear, causing her to flush.

¨We never did finish that debate.¨

¨About what?¨ But she remembers. Of course she remembers.

¨Who's better: Rihanna or Beyonce?¨

………

As the squad clears out of Jake’s apartment, Amy and Gina walk side by side, arguing.

Gina laughs. ¨Okay, how about this? Theyŕe both goddesses and this debate is pointless.¨

Amy frowns. ¨If it's pointless, then why did we just spend thirty minutes arguing over it?¨

Gina´s about to respond when she pauses and they both hear it: Single Ladies blasting from somewhere nearby.

Amy turns to look at Gina, getting an idea.

“Oh God, I used to be obsessed with this song,” Gina murmurs, 

And those ten words are all Amy needs to put her idea into motion.

Stepping closer, Amy is suddenly only a few feet away from Gina. 

“You used to love this song?”

When she speaks, it startles Gina, causing her to flinch, gaping.

Collecting herself, she responds, “C’mon, Santiago. Don’t scare me like that. Plus, that’s a stupid question. Single Ladies is heavenly and Beyoncé is a goddess, as you well know”

“Obviously, you wanna dance to it,” Amy responds, building momentum.

Gina’s response is automatic, the pieces clicking together.

“With you and your dorky dance moves? No way,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“Aw, come on, Gina. Don’t ruin the fun! Let’s dance.”

And before Gina can stop her, she’s descending into her signature dork dance, flailing her arms and legs all over the place, a spitting image of that night at the bodega. 

When she sneaks a glance at Gina, she sees her busting out some of those rare Linetti moves, the kind she only saw at Floorgasm performances. 

Laughing at the memory, Amy gravitates towards Gina, grabbing her hands and twirling her around, her ponytail swooshing in the breeze, a grin making itself known on her face.

Amy expects some resistance, but instead gets none. Gina’s hands clench hers, her hair whipping around, a grin mirroring hers on her face. They spin around the parking lot, their laughter puncturing the silence.

A warm, overwhelming affection pulses through her veins and she gets a sudden urge. An urge that sober Amy would quiet, peppering her brain with newly conjured thoughts to distract herself.

She stops twirling and, still clenching Gina’s hands, leans in, her heart racing, her mind fixating only on the pair of lips positioned in front of her.

Then, they’re gone, and so are the hands that had been so tightly clenching hers.

Gina gapes, her cheeks flushed and her gaze averted, turning around and backing away to her car.

Amy’s left stunned, sure even in her Five Drink Amy state that that was the right move, the signals Gina was giving out.

One question continues to pound through her head as the minutes pass: what had she done wrong? 

She was so sure, so confident about every decision she made. How had she managed to screw up this one?

In the distance, she would come to find out, there were two bystanders to the scene, two people who had lingered a little too long and seen something they hadn’t expected.

Jake Peralta and Rosa Diaz.


	5. v. hidden crushes and confessing flushes

jake 

jake   
hey can we meet up after work? about 5? it’s super important  
Read 1:30 PM

The hours dragged by.

The issue was pressing on his mind, more than he thought it would. 

What issue? Oh, the issue involving Gina and Amy having crushes on each other and being completely oblivious about it.

Once he noticed it, he couldn’t stop. He caught every averted gaze, every awkward interaction. 

Ever since Game Night, whatever camaraderie Gina and Amy had had been lost. They tried to avoid each other at every opportunity and the few times when they did have to interact, it was awkward. So painfully awkward. 

It made Shaw’s hell on earth, the both of them glancing at each other and then looking away, as if it caused them physical pain. Lately, they had even started making excuses to leave early and it was obvious that they were just that: excuses. Seriously, who had a dentist’s appointment at 10PM?

In a way, despite the awkwardness, it excited him. Gina having a crush, he means.

For all these years, Gina had had leverage over him, like that time at the ninth grade dance when he vomited all over his date after eating too many Fruit Roll Ups on a dare or that time he jumped a fence and landed in a beehive, causing him to have a terrible allergic reaction.

He finally had leverage,

But he would think about that later.

The important thing was, he needed to snap Gina out of her oblivion. Like, right now.

He was used to her crushes of course (she hated the word crush, but it was the truth). Before Amy entered the scene, they had never lasted this long before. They had especially never lasted this long without her saying something about it. He usually had to endure a few days of ranting about some guy or girl or other partner, who she was going to ask out the next time she saw them. Then, she would have what she called mind-blowing sex and move onto someone else. It was strange seeing her so focused on someone else, especially what that someone else was Amy Santiago.

He had nothing against Amy, not at all; he even had a crush on her a few years back. She wasn’t Gina’s type at all, though; straitlaced, uptight, organized. 

It puzzled him, more than he’d like to admit.

A pinging sound snapped him out of his trance. He glanced down and saw that his phone was vibrating like crazy against his desk, moving as if it had a life of its own.

gina   
come on jake   
4:57 PM

gina   
what’s up dude? i’ve been waiting out in the cold for like forever. i don’t wanna sound like santiago, but a bitch is about to get frostbite  
4:58 PM

gina   
where  
4:59 PM

gina   
are  
4:59 PM

gina   
you  
4:59 PM

gina  
you will be paying for my medical bills!  
5:00 PM

Jake scoffs, picking up his phone and gathering his things. Gina showed up to this meeting surprisingly early, compared to her usual tardiness. It could mean any number of things: she was busy, she was late for something, she was worked up, she was dehydrated, she wanted to kick him in the nuts (don’t ask; bad memory), and the list goes on. 

All he knew was that when Gina was texting him minutes before they were supposed to meet, something wasn’t right.

He starts heading towards the elevator, but decides at the last minute to head down the stairs. Today was not a day when he was willing to put up with the flood of detective traffic that normally accompanied riding the elevator.

Taking the steps two at a time, which was not good for his weak body, he reached the last step and almost crashed into Gina.

“Woah! Watch where you’re going! I don’t want to get your aura all over me.”

“What does that even mean? Why are you inside?” Jake asks, feeling the aftershock of having the life scared out of him.

“Bitch, it’s freezing out there. Anyways, what do you want to talk about?” There’s a certain guardedness in her voice, as if she knows what’s coming and is trying to avoid it. It’s so uncharacteristically Gina that he almost gives up on talking and wraps her in a bear hug. 

He persists, though, uttering three words that have the potential to change everything: “It’s about Amy.”

Gina’s chest tightens. A flicker of fear sparks in her eyes. Her foot starts tapping.

All of this occurs in a flicker, a quick pulse of vulnerability that not many people got to see in Gina. To the outsider looking in, all of these minute changes in her demeanor would have been hard to catch, unfathomable. But to Jake, who had known Gina for most of his life, he caught every signal and chose his next words carefully.

“Do you think you might like her?” he asks. 

“What? No. I mean, I guess- friend-wise, she’s okay, but I don’t get crushes. I get mind-blowing sex and then peace and quiet. I would never get a crush on Amy, she’s too-“

She pauses for a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts.

It’s the same rhetoric she’s used with him before, the same recycled first thoughts. Coupled with the uncertainty in her voice, Jake can tell that this situation is much worse than he originally thought.

He takes a deep breath before plowing on, “I see the way you look at her, Gina. I’ve known you forever and I’ve never seen you look at someone the way you look at her.”

“That’s-“ 

“Hear me out, okay?”

For a moment, she looks like she wants to protest and Jake braces himself for some impassioned speech to come boiling to the surface. Instead, she surrenders, nodding.

“Remember that Game Night at my house?”

“Yeah, I totally beat your ass at Scrabble.”

“Hey! How was I supposed to know what a protractor was?”

Gina sighs. “How did you ever make it past the second grade?”

Jake almost lets himself get sidetracked, but manages to shift the conversation back into gear. 

“Anyways, when me and Rosa were talking outside, we saw you and Amy dancing in the parking lot and, uh, when she tried to, you know-“

“C’mon, Jake. That was all it was, dancing. Plus, Amy was a little tipsy. Of course she tried to kiss me. I’m an irresistible snack.” She tries to laugh, but it doesn’t sound very convincing.

“You have to tell her how you feel, or it’s gonna eat you alive.”

Gina lets out a deep whoosh of air, her guard coming down.

“So, there’s really no other way to get it out of my system, huh?”

Jake raises his eyebrows, puzzled. “What other way- oh, no. You are not having a one night stand with Amy. She works with you!”

“Well, I tried.”

“Yeah.”

“Tough.” Gina sighs, looking off into the distance, the beginnings of a plan hatching in her mind.

…………

rosa

She didn’t want to do it.

Talk to Amy, she means.

She hated having personal conversations with people under any circumstances and this was no different.

She had made a promise to Jake, though, a promise to somehow persuade uptight, by-the-books Amy to let her guard down and admit she had feelings for Gina.

If it sounded hard, it was.

Dragging her away from her work, for one thing, was close to impossible.

Amy was a workaholic, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to be in a police precinct, but it meant that she hardly, if ever, left her desk, except for a stress cigarette break, a quick trip to the bathroom, or when she was out on a case. Sometimes, she even had a quick lunch in the break room, but most of the time, she either ate lunch at her desk while doing work or went down to find a food truck.

All of those instances felt like odd times to try to talk to her, but there was no way to get around odd. The second she noticed Amy gravitating towards the vending machine, she followed suit. From a distance, of course; she wasn’t trying to be an idiot and get noticed. 

It took a few moments for Amy to notice her presence, her mouth moving quietly, her brows furrowed as she scanned the items in the vending machine, probably doing some calculations to determine which snack she should get this time. 

She almost considered backing out of the plan, telling Jake she couldn’t do it, when Amy noticed her.

Wasting no time at all, Rosa spoke quickly “You like Gina and everyone knows it. You should tell her because it’s awkward and uncomfortable and honestly, I’d rather see you two date than pine for each other like a couple of idiots.”

The second she stops speaking, Amy bursts into sputters, “What- I don’t - Gina’s just - How do you even -“

“Do you like her?” The urge to leave was strong now, stronger than before; god, why had Jake asked her of all people to do this? Sure, she was there that night, but that didn’t mean anything.

Amy pauses, hesitating before murmuring, “I mean, yes. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing.”

Rosa frowns. “What’s confusing about it? Just walk up to her, tell her you like her, and see what happens from there.”

Amy sighs and Rosa can tell she’s in for one of Amy’s long-winded explanations.

“I’ve never- I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. I mean, sure, I had crushes, but they were never that serious. They always passed as quickly as they came and I thought it would be just a phase. I didn’t- well, I didn’t know I could feel the same thing I feel with men with women, too, I guess. I don’t know.”

Now it was Rosa’s turn to gape. This was so uncharacteristically Amy. Straitlaced, organized Amy Santiago was stumbling over her words, and possibly bisexual, like her. Rosa’s heart raced, as she played around with the possibility of coming out to Amy.

“So..you’re bisexual?” she asks, suddenly interested.

“I mean, yeah, I think, I’m pretty sure.”

Suddenly, Rosa’s head is spinning and it takes all of her self-control to not leave right there. She breathes in, stabilizing herself.

“I’m bisexual, too,” Rosa says,

Amy gapes and she starts to say something, but Rosa cuts her off.

“So, if you want to talk about anything, I’ve got your back, okay?”

Amy breathes out a sigh of relief. “You’re saying you have my back?”

She allows a small smile to escape as she lets the words fall into place from years ago, from a conversation just like this one. “Yeah, I got your back.” 

A moment of silence passes and Rosa returns to frowning again, clearing her throat. “You go get the girl, okay?”

Amy, grinning from ear to ear now, nods. 

“You got it, girl.”

“Too much.”

Amy falters a bit. “O- okay.”


	6. vi. clandestine meetings and longing stares

When Gina Linetti thought big, she did big

It was one of the luxuries of having great first thoughts; she never had to think anything through.

She could decide she pegged someone as attractive, walk right up to them, and, using only her signature charm and wits, persuade them to have sex with her. Or, at the very least, go on a date with her.

With Amy, it was different.

As much as she loved having great first thoughts, this situation required second thoughts. And third thoughts. And fourth thoughts.

She convinced herself that it was for a good reason, all of these additional thoughts. Dating someone you barely knew was easy. Dating someone you worked with was close to impossible.

It was why Gina never did it, except with Boyle, but she couldn’t really explain him. Nothing could. He was an anomaly in the Gina Linetti Romance Equation and didn’t count in the big scheme of things.

Especially considering that for the first time, she actually wanted to date someone long term, she had to employ caution.

If she didn’t, this whole operation could explode in her face and if that happened, Gina wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to be that phoenix rising from the ashes. Instead, she would be the phoenix suffocating in the ashes, drowning along with everyone else in the tide of life. 

She had started off big: a Floorgasm dance routine put together to ask Amy on a date.

Halfway through, she realized that maybe a big gesture wasn’t the way to go; maybe a smaller gesture would be better. A gesture that was still trademark Gina Linetti, of course, but with less drama. It was an unusual approach to how she would normally do things, but the situation she was in called for unusual. 

………

amy

Gina kept looking at her. 

More than normal.

It was weird.

Every time Amy looked up, there was Gina, looking at her. Plus, when Amy caught her looking, she didn’t back down; she kept going.

Each time, it was more intense.

It was close to the end of the work day and they were engaged in one of these staring contests now, Amy fighting off the urge to blush and failing. She weakly tried covering a hand over her cheek and glancing down, but the blush was still there, her smile still large. She was on fire, her heart pounding fast. What did Gina Linetti have planned? What was causing her cold gaze to thaw?

Before she knew it, it was 5:00. She observed Gina from a distance, anticipation thrumming in her veins, but she didn’t move, staring instead at her phone.

Amy frowned, furrowing her eyebrows. She was sure Gina had something planned. Sure of it.

She sighed, her mood deflating. She decides to take the elevator and steps in the second the bell dings, fixating on the floor numbers at the top of the elevator to distract herself.

When she steps off, she comes face to face with Gina, catching her off guard.

They wait for everyone else to step off the elevator and Amy starts to say something before Gina cuts her off.

“You know how Four Drink Amy is, like, a pansexual goddess?”

Amy frowns. This was not where she had expected the conversation to go.

“Sure..?” she trails off, puzzled.

“And you know how Six Drink Amy is all lonely and sad?”

“I’ve heard things.”

Suddenly, Gina sticks out her hand, stroking it up and down Amy’s arm. It catches her off guard. Again.

Her heartbeat accelerates and her gaze is trained on her hand, the strange, warm feeling blossoming in her chest.

She feels Gina’s gaze on her face and turns. 

Gina lifts her hand from her arm and Amy finds herself craving that touch again, that warmness against her skin.

She lifts out a hand and sets it on Amy’s chin, studying her reaction.

Amy’s breathing hitches, her gaze trained now on her chin, biting her lip.

Gina’s gaze lingers there, too, then shifts towards her lips.

Amy takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself, 

Where was everyone else? Had they all taken the stairs? How was no one stopping this?

These thoughts flurried one after another in her head, pounding one moment, wisping away like a dandelion in the wind next.

Amy looks at Gina’s lips and it takes all of her self-control to not kiss her.

Gina obviously doesn’t feel the same way. 

She pulls Amy’s chin towards her, causing Amy to stumble.

Amy’s hands fall, wrapping themselves around Gina’s waist, as Gina threads her arms around Amy’s neck and their lips meet.

It’s electric. It’s...fireworks. It’s everything and nothing all at the same time. Everything around her suddenly seems insignificant, every flurried thought in her head vanished. She’s grounded in the here and now, the background blurred. The only things that matter now are Gina, the feeling of her lips against hers, and wanting more.

Amy leans in, deepening the kiss, and Gina follows suit, clenching her hands in Amy’s hair. 

They release for air and both of them are flushed, breathing heavily. 

Amy stares down at Gina for a few seconds, words extinguished from her brain. She couldn’t remember how to form a sentence; what were words?

“Wow,” she breathes, a smile blossoming on her face and laughter escaping from her lips.

Gina smiles, too, a pure, rare smile that filled Amy’s heart with warmth, affection, and something more.

“So, want to go to the movies or whatever you normal people do?”

Amy laughs. “You mean a date?”

Gina rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

Amy smiles, leaning in to kiss Gina first this time, a light, soft kiss that makes her insides feel fluttery.

She releases from the kiss and grins,

“I’d love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! feedback is appreciated :))


End file.
